Fall of Din
by Oldewindmill
Summary: The final battle has begun.


It was a serene day in Hyrule field. The sun shone with the brilliance of a merciful god, and the light breeze sent ripples through the soft, long, green grass and over the rounded and smooth hills of the land. A humble rabbit sat on the outside of its hole, sniffing the pristine air, for it had smelled something out of place. It smelled something that betrayed the content nature of that day. It smelled blood.

With the sound of a crashing boulder, the Hyrule Castle Town drawbridge slammed down over the moat. It had not been lowered, it had been dropped. In fact, its chains had been cut through completely. At this sudden movement, the rabbit darted back into its hole, and not a moment too soon.

Ganondorf, Lord of the Gerudos and King of Evil, confidently strode over the bridge in long, vain strides. His left hand was swinging at his side, the mark of the triforce glowing upon it, and his right secured something slumped over his right shoulder: a mass of blood-stained cloth and feeble, limp flesh. Once Ganondorf reached but three paces from the edge of the drawbridge, he stopped walking, savoring the sweet air and the beauty of his new land.

But the immaculate and unspoiled land received a major blemish when Ganondorf threw the corpse of Princess Zelda onto the ground, her lifeless bones cracking as they made contact with the hard earth.

A corpse is empty. It holds no significance; it is a hollow shell, the discarded tool of an exiled soul. It is meaningless; an inanimate object with little to do with the person that it once belonged to. But yet, when this inanimate object hit the ground, an era was ended. Gone was the ancient dynasty of the Hylian Royal family. Gone was the benevolence of Princess Zelda, ruler over the land. Gone was any semblance of hope. From the second that useless and empty shell hit the ground, the wind stopped blowing. The birds stopped chirping. And the green grass of Hyrule field seemed to lose its livelihood, fading into a sickly grayish shade.

Ganondorf saw this and was angry. He had worked so hard to achieve the conquest of this new land. He had worked tirelessly to claim the beautiful land as his own, simply for jealously. He grew up on a haunted wasteland, with a nomadic clan of Gerudo. Oh, how he had longed to feel soft grass under his bare feet, to savor the wind without shielding his eyes from the sand, even to swim in unspoiled water devoid of mud. But above all, he wanted _his _grass to stride on. He wanted _his _wind to gently caress his face. He wanted _his _water to quench his thirst and provide a medium for floatation. When he took Hyrule, he gained all these things. But now, it was for naught. The very land itself seemed to revile against him. Disgusted, he turned his back upon the traitorous landscape and stomped back over the drawbridge and into his new city, leaving behind the broken body of Zelda. The second the drawbridge was crossed, he raised his left fist, the symbol of the triforce glowing angrily upon it, and the drawbridge hurriedly snapped shut without the aid of chains, almost as though it were afraid.

Zelda could only see grey. She could not see, hear, or feel anything. She tried to look down at herself because she couldn't feel her body, and, to her surprise, it was not there. In fact, she had no body at all. She thought she had moved her head, but she did not, she simply willed her perspective to alter itself.

Where was she? Up, down, left, right, everything was simply endless grey mist. Despite this confusion, it only took her a second later to deduce what exactly had happened to her. She was dead. She could remember a sharp pain in her chest, and looking down to find a wide blade protruding from her navel, forcing out endless torrents of blood and gore. Soon, everything faded out to grey, and the pain of her body numbed until she could feel nothing. The ringing in her ears faded out too, and soon, she was here, in this endless void.

And she clearly wasn't going anywhere… So what was the point? Zelda was disappointed that this was all that existed on the other side of the veil. If this was all one was to be motivated by throughout life, what was the point of living? Or, perhaps, living was its own reward? So in essence, her existence had ended. It was doomed to exist in this netherworld, where all one could ever do is ponder. And she had an eternity to do it.

After what seemed to Zelda like the first hour or so, she had to admit, it was peaceful. She was free from the stresses of royal life… But then again, she couldn't remember what exactly that was like. It had seemed like an eternity ago, but she had nothing to gauge time by in this place. It seemed to be an hour, but it could have easily been years. Soon, however, further memories began to fade, and Zelda found that ignorance was indeed bliss. Perhaps this was her reward: Freedom from identity.

However, some time later after all her reason, identity, and memory were gone, she heard a voice. It was a soft, cool sound, going up, and down, and up again, and soon she realized it was singing. It took her a moment to remember what exactly that meant and what exactly singing was, But, after concentrating harder then she had thought possible, she could soon not only hear the words, but listen, and remember what they meant… But it took so long she only heard the final stanza.

"_..So hold on, my daughter, all is not lost,  
Hold on, dear Zelda, at any cost,  
If your memories die, then hope will die too,  
Thus speaks I, Your friend, the Oracle Nayru."_

She shuddered and concentrated even harder than before. She did not know who Zelda was, (Although she suspected it was her), and she did not know who Nayru was or why she ought to obey her, but she felt like she could trust the voice and thus worked hard to keep her very scarce, faint, and muddled memories from slipping away. In time, though, more memories returned to her, and soon, her identity came swimming back from the thoughtless oblivion from whence it hid.

It hit her with more velocity then that of her corpse hitting the ground. She was Zelda, princess and youngest ruler ever to reign upon the throne after her father's sudden death. She was Zelda, benevolent and famous for wisdom, who hid from the world in her very large castle that, with the underground labyrinth underneath it included, was probably bigger than the town inside which it was hidden. She was Zelda, despiser of evil and founder of the panel of representitives, so that the people could have their say and elect advisors to her. She was Zelda, the most powerful person in Hyrule. She was Zelda, who had been haunted by nightmares her entire life. She was Zelda, and she was dead.

All this came back to her in an instant, and she soon began to ache, flooded with all the information. She had no body with which to feel the pain, but nonetheless, it was still there, and it irked her relentlessly. So she let go, hoping to dispose of the pain, letting her memories slowly trail away into the darkness…

"_No!"_ she told herself. She had to hold on. For Nayru was a godess, and who was Zelda to reject her will?

Ganondorf sat in his new throne, delightfully bored, twiddling his fingers against its armrest, practicing moving things with his mind. He could open and close doors, lift and drop grapes into his maw, and brake glasses, all without touching anything. He always knew that he had inherited the triforce of power, but to his knowledge no one had ever become so proficient at using it. Not even the great Ganondorf after whom he was named, who had nearly managed to slay the rebel "hero of time" and his slimy reincarnations several times over, had even approached this level of skill.

Ganondorf already had a lot of power to toy with. But recently his power had doubled, when he tore the triforce of wisdom out of Zelda's soul and held it inside his own, using the darkest magic ever used in the last two hundred years of Hyrule's history. But he was not used to the added power of wisdom, and it had a profound effect on his methods of rule. The first thing that ordered after he had sat down on that hideous throne after disposing of the girl was to begin a propaganda campaign, to put posters and notices all over castle town market and all the major villages and hamlets of Hyrule, and to prepare a speech to the people of Hyrule which depicted him as savior from a tyrannical regime. There was no way he could have thought of that normally, so it had to have been his new triforce piece. Indeed, Wisdom and Power together was formidable in other ways as well, hence his increase in telekinetic proficiency. He had even made cut the drawbridge chains, which were made of solid iron, without any effort at all. Soon, he predicted, he could make the chains disappear altogether.

He was desperate to practice on more solid metal, but had decided instead to remain in his throne room. He had only just secured his new regime, and what would it look like to his people if he simply killed the princess and rode away, to do whatever he wanted? They would think that he was an assassin, not an usurper, and they would fear him less. Most worrisome of all, he would not be king. So he decided, probably with the input of the girl's triforce, to stay in the Castle for at least a few days.

But nonetheless, the Castle grew tiresome. So he wanted to get a tour of it, and had ordered a young servant boy to assemble the staff and servants of the castle and grounds in the entry way so that he could meet, interview, and maybe execute a few simply out of boredom. Then, the boy would take him on a tour of the castle. (Ganondorf knew not why he had taken a liking to this particular servant boy, but he had done so just the same.)

Link gulped. Before Zelda had been assassinated, it was his job to sweep the Castle's kitchens, far below the so-called "basement." He had only ever even seen the Princess once, and that was a quick glance that he had been scolded for. But things were different now. Under this new, malevolent king, who had ruled for only six hours, he had been the main mode of liaison between said king and the other servants. It seemed that Ganondorf had commanded him to do _everything, _at least so far. Right now, he had been told to assemble every inhabitant of the castle in the entry way for Ganondorf to become acquainted with them. This was no small task. The castle was immense and had a higher population then many of the hamlets of Hyrule, and the myriad of tunnels that were woven beneath (many of which had not been fully explored), had rendered this a nearly impossible task.

Link stood in the entryway with fifty or so servants worriedly talking with each other, speaking with Malon, a local rancher's daughter who came to the castle daily with milk. She had been unfortunate enough to be in the castle when the new king had sealed the door shut, claiming it could only be opened "by the will of Din." She was good friends with Link, as it was usually he who was sent by the cooks to go outside and collect and pay for deliveries.

"…we've already covered Zelda's maidservants, and you've already gotten all the cooks from down below. We have most of the knights and their squires, which should bring us in at a total of around two hundred," she said, trying to total up the number of people present.

Link scowled. "Don't count, Malon," he said. "I already did. There are around fifty here. We didn't have two hundred to begin with, and more then half left when we left to try to find Impa."

"Where are they, then?"

"Hiding in the tunnels, no doubt," Link responded. "It could take a lifetime to find them."

"And the Royal blacksmith, carpenter, stonemason, and jeweler are nowhere to be found. The maids and janitorial servants appear to have disappeared as well."

"What about Zelda's… what's the term…?"

"Do you mean that pompus, arrogant old woman who makes Zelda's gowns?" Malon said, angrily. She had once bumped into this woman on her way down to the kitchens, and, as a result, had been hung by her thumbs in the dungeon for three hours until Impa found and released her. Link could see why she held a grudge.

"Yes, her," he replied simply, hoping the subject of this woman would end.

"I've seen her nowhere, but truth be told, I have no desire to even look."

Link laughed. It felt good to hear a joke, especially in the tense situation the Castle was in. But even though Malon's comment conveyed welcome humor, it also meant that there was no one else to look for. There was no working around it. He would have to tell the new king of his unsatisfactory findings, and, based on what he had done to the guards when he stormed inside, he was not one it would be wise to anger.

"You realize what this means, don't you? We have to tell Ganondorf."

"Um, _no…_" Malon said, sheepishly. "It was your job. Sorry."

Without a word, Link turned away and walked up the stairs towards the huge double-door entrance to the throne room, where his new, malevolent king sat waiting for him. While he was disappointed that his friend would not accompany him, he couldn't say you could blame Malon. If he were in her position, he would have done the same thing. "Hey! Be brave! Have courage!" she called out after him, and he said a fast and silent prayer to whatever was listening.

Link was about to push open the huge, tall double-doors, but one creaked open as if pushed by the nonexistent breeze. Ganondorf was standing right there, he had been the one that had opened the door, and his broad chest was only a foot away from Link's face!

"So you are finished?" he inquired, in his deep voice.

"Erm, no sir. You see, the majority of the servants have hidden below ground in the royal crypt and the surrounding tunnels. They've sealed the magic door behind them and we cannot get through. However, about a fourth of the servants are gathered, as you asked, and are available for your service."

"Are there cooks among them?" The Evil King asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Then after the cowards have starved in the crypt we may break through the door and prepare a feast with their meat."

Link nearly vomited, but managed to hold it in. He could not, nonetheless, hide the reflex from Ganondorf, who laughed, and said jovially, "Boy, I may have killed your princess and all of the castle guards, but it was a necessary evil. I was chosen by Din to lead this people, and that was the only way I could. Do not let yourself think that I am an evil man, nor one without a sense of humor." He finished with a wink.

Link was relieved that what he said had been a joke, but it was a sick joke nonetheless and he didn't hold it to fancy. But he swallowed his disgust and began to politely invite his new king downstairs into the entryway to see his new servants, but Ganondorf simply disregarded him and angrily walked down the stairs, his temporarily pleasant demeanor once more seemingly nonexistent.

When he got to the bottom, he asked Link, who had been running behind him to keep up, to showcase each of the servants.

"With pleasure, sir, I'd be glad…" But he was cut off by Ganondorf saying a curt "never mind, lad," so he went to the back of the line that had formed out of the servants.

The first one up was Bjorn Svaidly, of a Knight tasked with monitoring Kakariko village. Ganondorf took little interest in him, as he did of everyone… until Christina, the oldest of Zelda's personal servants, got to the front of the line.

"And your name is?" Ganondorf said monotonously.

"Christina."

"And what did you do under the previous regime?"

"I was Zelda's personal assistant."

"You are older than Zelda. Was that awkward, obeying a child?"

"No. Zelda was my friend, and royalty. As such I had to obey her, and I did so willingly."

"How old are you, Christina, exactly, in comparison with Zelda's seventeen years?"

"I am twenty."

"I will not lie to you, Christina, I have no need for simple maidservants, at least in your case. I fact, I would rather that you…" he trailed off, examining Christina's well-sculpted body and slightly tight dress. "…provide me with _other services."_

And he seized her by her hand and began to storm up the stairs, Christina screaming. Link took a few steps forward, but Bjorn Svaidly's muscled arm stopped him. "Are you mad, kid? He'd get you killed! Did you see what he did to the guards?" Link tried to move around the knight's burly arm but when he did so the knight held him back completely muttering what Link thought was "…it's for your own good, son…" or something similar. Link could not escape the knight's grasp. He was the only one who was willing to help Christina, and yet he couldn't. Christina would be left to whatever evil and degrading thing Ganondoft wanted her for. No one deserved that, not even Christina, who had a reputation with everyone in the Castle as angering easily and possessing little to no self-control.

But all hope was not lost for Christina. For someone else had the courage to stand up to the Evil King, and Link gawked in shock at the situation when he saw it.

Malon ran up the long stairs behind Ganondorf, passed him, ran into the throne room, and locked the door behind her. Both the King's and Zelda's former bedchambers existed as anti-chambers to the throne room, so now Ganondorf could not enter any one of the tree rooms beyond that door. And Ganondorf would settle for no less then royal chambers for this situation, Link knew. Ganondorf was inherently a greedy man and would not settle for a servant's bed of straw.

So Ganondorf let go of Christina, who ran down the stairs sobbing, pulling on her hair as though it was troublesome mass of nails that had to be wrenched from a block of wood without the proper tools.

Ganondorf stood at the top of the stairway, gazing at the doorway, transfixed in shock. He had evidently left the keys with his other spoils of war inside the throne room itself. He was angry, too. Fuming, he lifted his left hand into the air with the palm facing him and the palm's back facing the door, and, as though his hand were a lantern, light had erupted from this gesture.

And a second later, the door was blown off its hinges, the wooden structures smashing against the ground into roughly two dozen pieces of highly splintered oak.

"FOOLISH GIRL!" he yelled out loud, arms outstretched, into the seemingly empty throne room. "NOW YOU WILL SUFFER EXCECUTION AT MY HANDS!"


End file.
